


I've Flown Around the World

by FriendofCarlotta



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Also Cas' Neighbor Ships It, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And Dean's Taxi Driver Does Too, Architect Castiel (Supernatural), But love conquers all, Cas Lives Abroad, Castiel Bakes, Dean has a Fear of Flying, Declarations Of Love, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Grand Romantic Gestures, Gratuitous Travel Porn, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Mechanic Dean Winchester, Sass and Sarcasm, and then more fluff, so many of them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:33:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29478510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendofCarlotta/pseuds/FriendofCarlotta
Summary: Dean has just realized he’s in love with his best friend Cas. Which would be great, except for one thing: Cas is moving to China. Rather than let Cas fade from his life, Dean makes a decision: he’ll conquer his fear of flying and travel halfway across the world to tell Cas how he feels. Nothing could possibly go wrong.A story of grand romantic gestures, unsafe driving, and the consequences of making major purchases while drunk.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 57
Kudos: 151





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse for this giant pile of fluff, other than I miss traveling, and I want Dean and Cas to do it if I can't. 
> 
> All the Chinese phrases in this fic are rendered in pinyin, the official romanization system for Chinese characters in mainland China. Whenever Chinese is spoken, the English translation is right next to it in italics.
> 
>  **A note on English names:** There are two original Chinese characters in this fic, and both of them go by English names. Many Chinese people, especially younger ones, choose to adopt English/Westernized names. There are a lot of reasons for this, including the fact that Chinese is a language without an alphabet, and the meaning of any word (including a name) depends on the tone in which it's spoken. So having an English name can be a matter of convenience when interacting with someone who isn't fluent in Chinese. But for many Chinese people I've met, it's also a way to assert their identity and individuality in ways that might otherwise be discouraged. As I'm not Chinese myself, my knowledge on this subject is definitely imperfect, but please know that both the English names and the personalities of these characters are based on real people I know and love. I hope I've done them justice. 
> 
> Many thanks to [dothraki_shieldmaiden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dothraki_shieldmaiden/pseuds/dothraki_shieldmaiden) for brainstorming cookie fortunes with me, and to [tiamatv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiamatv/pseuds/tiamatv) for her valuable insight on the subject of names.
> 
> This story is finished and should be done posting before the end of the week.
> 
> Enjoy!

_I’ve Flown Around the World in a Plane_

_I’ve Settled Revolutions in Spain_

_The North Pole I’ve Charted_

_But I Can’t Get Started With You_

_\- Ella Fitzgerald_

*******

There’s a dull, hollow ache in Dean’s chest as he watches his best friend, the man he’s shared his life and home with for almost a decade, get ready to leave him behind.

Methodical just as he always is, Cas empties every drawer and every hanger in the bedroom, putting his belongings into one of the boxes destined for a storage unit, or into the suitcase that lies open on the bed.

“So you’re really going, huh?” Dean can hear the smallness in his voice, that little scraped edge of hurt. He hopes Cas doesn’t pick up on it.

Frowning, Cas looks up from tucking a pair of socks into a corner of the yellow suitcase; the one Dean told him to get when they went shopping together a couple of weeks ago. Because nobody else has a yellow suitcase, and Dean’s seen enough movies to know that it’s a bad idea to accidentally pick up somebody else’s suitcase at baggage claim. You might just get stuck with clothes that don’t fit, but you could also end up with heroin or evidence of an international spy plot.

“I am,” Cas says, so slowly that the statement almost turns into a question. “You were the one who said I should.”

“Yeah.” Dean tries to smile, but the corners of his mouth feel just as heavy as the rest of him. He can’t quite get them to lift. “Yeah, no, and I still think so, but—”

_But I just recently realized I’m in love with you. Very, very recently. Somewhere around the time you cursed out the book that wouldn’t fit. Or maybe when I noticed you pack that shirt of mine you always steal, which I give you crap about, but I don’t actually mind._

Cas’ calm blue eyes hold Dean’s own, keeping him pinned until it feels like pulling away might cause irreparable damage inside him. “But?” Cas prompts, softly.

And this is it, right? This is Dean’s last chance.

Cas, his best friend and roommate since college, is going away. He’s moving to China for three years to set up a new overseas office for the architecture firm where he works. Which is great, because Cas always dreamed of being the kind of guy who travels a lot, but he somehow never got around to it, and Dean _wants_ him to have that.

So when Cas came home one night a few months ago and told Dean about the offer his boss made him, Dean told him to take it, without hesitation. Mostly, he doesn’t regret that. But who knows what could happen in three years? They might lose touch. Hell, Cas might never come back at all. He might meet someone over there and settle down.

That thought is what gets Dean up off Cas’ desk chair. He approaches slowly, telegraphing his moves, giving Cas plenty of time to back away. Cas’ eyes widen, but he holds his ground, and Dean doesn’t give himself time to second-guess. He frames Cas’ face with his hands and pulls him close. And then, just like that, on a Tuesday night thirteen years into their friendship, they kiss for the first time ever.

Holy shit, they’re kissing. He’s kissing _Cas_ , and it’s the taste of the shitty takeout food they shared an hour ago, it’s the smell of Cas’ citrusy shampoo, but it’s also as simple as the warmth and comfort and familiarity that have been the background noise of Dean’s life for years now. Cas tilts his head and drops the shirt he was folding, wrapping his hand around the back of Dean’s neck instead.

Their kiss deepens, lips opening and tongues sliding against each other, breathless and unselfconscious, like they have nothing to lose. Because they don’t. Anything they maybe could’ve had is already lost, irretrievably. Or it will be, once Cas steps on that plane tomorrow.

They pull at each other’s clothes, frantic, and one of them sweeps both suitcases to the floor. Everything’s a blur after that, the slide of skin on skin, sparking electric and filling that hollow space in Dean’s chest while it lasts.

Cas’ strong, elegant fingers wrap around both their cocks and jerk them together, slow and easy at first, then faster, until Dean cries out and comes all over his best friend’s hand.

Cas reaches his own peak with a long, low groan, breathing hard and choppy in the sweat-warm air of the room.

After they’ve both taken a moment to come back down to earth, Cas rolls off to the side. It’s harder than it should be to look him in the face, but Dean figures he can’t afford to hide; not if he wants to keep Cas in his life after… _that._

When he does have the guts to look, he’s relieved to find a soft smile on Cas’ face. “That was… unexpected,” Cas says, eyes crinkled in the warm, slightly timid way that’s so _him_.

“Yeah,” Dean croaks, a hollow ache already settling into him again, sinking claws under his skin.

Cas’ eyes roam his face, searching for something. “I could stay,” he says, voice unbearably soft, and so close that Dean can feel the puffs of air against his face.

And Dean wants him to. God, he really, really wants him to. But this is Cas’ dream he’s chasing after, and Dean would never ask him to give it up. He couldn’t be that selfish.

So he shakes his head and paints on the brightest smile he can. “You should go,” he says.

Cas keeps looking at him for another beat or two, a question in his eyes that Dean wishes to God he knew how to answer.

When Cas heads to the bathroom to clean himself off, Dean slinks off to his own bed. Because if he stays with Cas, naked and vulnerable as he is, maybe wraps his arms around his friend as he sleeps, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to let go.

The next morning, he wakes up to a note taped to the fridge.

_Dean,_

_I know you were planning to drive me to the airport, but after what happened, I thought it was best to go by myself._

_Last night was surprising, but very lovely. I hope you don’t regret it. I certainly don’t. Please don’t be a stranger. If nothing else, I hope we can try to remain friends while I’m away._

_I’ll miss you._

_Cas_

***

_Ten Months Later_

This is the worst idea ever. What the hell was he thinking?

It’s not that Dean hates traveling, as such. Hell, if he could afford to take off more than a couple of days at a time at the garage, he’d drive his Baby from coast to coast, rambling along the scenic byroads, stopping at hole-in-the-wall bars and chrome-bright diners along the way.

It’s just that he really, really, really hates flying. Hates it so much, he took his friend Charlie to the airport with him to make sure he’d actually get on the stupid metal death trap that was going to take him halfway around the world.

Of course, she wasn’t allowed to go all the way to the gate with him, so he almost talked himself out of boarding at least five times. (One of those times, he actually threw up in the airport bathroom from sheer nerves. The dirty look he got from the cleaning lady is going to haunt his dreams.)

But in the end, there was one thought that got him to take that final step out of the gangway and onto the plane: _Cas. I'm doing this for Cas._

On the flight, he had two almost-panic attacks, and yeah, he might’ve grabbed the hand of the nice old woman who was sitting next to him at a couple of points when the ride got bumpy. Not wanting to knock himself out with sleeping pills or get too drunk (because nothing says “big romantic gesture” like showing up half-comatose at your crush’s apartment), he spent pretty much the entire flight with his eyes closed and headphones in, listening to Metallica and humming along quietly. It’s a miracle his poor seat neighbor didn’t ask to move.

At least _that_ ordeal is over, but now Dean has a whole different kind of challenge to deal with: he’s outside the United States for the first time in his thirty-two years of life. And it’s not like he just hopped across the northern border to Canada either.

He’s in _China_ , for fuck’s sake.

In the arrivals hall of Beijing International Airport, to be exact. And it’s gorgeous — all tall, soaring columns that flow upward from the gleaming floor until they all meet in the center of a huge glass dome. Several decks of shops surround the hall on all sides, jutting out on top of each other in a way that vaguely reminds Dean of the _USS Enterprise_.

So yeah, gorgeous. But it’s also stressful and busy and overwhelming. All around him, people are hurrying off in countless different directions, and every single one of them seems to know exactly where they’re going. More than a few of these annoyingly confident people knock into him as they pass.

Not for the first time — or the tenth — since he left, Dean asks himself what the fuck he thinks he’s actually doing here.

 _Trying to see if you still have a shot with Cas_ , a braver part of his brain reminds him. _Really, trying to see if you ever did._

Once Cas got to China, they did try to stay in touch. Dean was kind of hurt that Cas left without saying goodbye, but Dean basically did the same thing to him the night before, so… he got it.

Anyway, they set Skype dates a couple of times a week, but there was always something just a little awkward and stilted about their conversations, because they were both trying to steer clear of the giant, hookup-shaped elephant in the room. 

It also didn’t help that there was a twelve-hour time difference between them. If Dean had just come home after a long day at work, Cas was busy getting ready for his own day, and vice versa. Some calls, they barely exchanged more than polite questions about the weather and the general state of their lives. After a while, the frequency of their Skype dates started to taper off. It happened so slowly that it was barely noticeable — at first, they went down to twice a week, then once a week, then once every two weeks.

All the while, Cas’ absence was inescapable in every little thing about the duplex they used to share. It was in the tea bags gathering dust in the kitchen cabinet; in the space on the couch where Cas used to lounge and work on his concept drawings; but most of all, in the empty bedroom that Dean still didn’t have the stomach to rent out to anyone else.

About eight months after Cas had left, there came a day when Dean realized he couldn’t actually remember the last time they’d talked. He called Charlie that night and told her the whole damn story: about realizing he was in love with Cas, about hooking up, about Cas leaving without a proper goodbye.

“You’re an idiot,” she said, with absolute conviction.

“What? Why?”

“Because Cas is obviously in love with you too.”

Dean’s heart tried its best to crawl up his throat. “No, that’s not… listen. There’s just no way. If Cas was in love with me, why did he leave, huh? Riddle me that.”

A thoughtful hum sounded across the line. “Did you ask him to stay?”

“Well, no, obviously,” Dean snapped, sounding a lot angrier than he’d meant to be, and feeling bad about it immediately. None of this was Charlie’s fault. “Living in China was his _dream_. I could never stop him from going after that.”

A beat of silence, then, “Dean, did he _offer_ to stay?”

Hand clenched into a white-knuckled fist on his thigh, Dean considered lying. But he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Charlie would see right through him. “Yeah. But I told him to go.”

“Dean Winchester.”

“Hm?”

“You book a goddamn flight to China right this second, and don’t you dare chicken out.”

And with that, the line went dead, cutting off the excellent counterargument Dean was definitely going to come up with.

He paced and mumbled and fretted for about two more hours, but then he curled up with his laptop and started researching flights to China. That done, he started filling out applications: first for a passport, then for a travel visa.

He even sent Cas an email, asking for his mailing address so he could ship him something — never once mentioning that the “something” would be Dean Winchester himself, in the flesh.

Over the next few weeks, his doubts kept resurfacing. What if Charlie was wrong and Cas was never interested in pursuing anything serious in the first place? If that was the case, Dean was setting himself up for major heartbreak.

Yet, he took his leap of faith anyway, and now it’s landed him halfway across the world, staring down an unfamiliar city in an unfamiliar country where he doesn’t even speak the language. For fuck’s sake, what if Cas doesn’t even want to see him? His flight home doesn’t leave for another _week_.

Yeah, he’s going to think himself right into another panic attack if he’s not careful.

To avoid throwing up on the gleaming floor of the arrivals hall, Dean shuts off his brain and starts walking. Maybe if he pretends he knows where he’s going, he’ll end up in the right place somehow.

He _should_ be okay if he can just find a taxi stand. He’s got Cas’ address, printed in Chinese characters, on a piece of paper that’s tightly clutched in his fist. Showing that to the driver should do the trick, right? Maybe along with some pointing and gesturing? And if it doesn’t, he could always go back inside the airport and spend a week in one of the terminals. How hard could it be? There’s plenty of food, and bookshops, and benches to sleep on. 

On his second circuit of the lobby, Dean manages to find a sign for taxis and follows it out through a set of sliding glass doors. As soon as he steps out of the air-conditioned building, a searing, humid summer heat slams into him. It’s like being smothered by a wet dish towel, and there’s a vaguely sooty smell to the air that’s making it hard to breathe.

Also not helping is the fact that he’s immediately surrounded by people, a swirling, jostling crowd of them, pushing at each other as they try to get to the front of the taxi stand.

All that pushing seems unnecessarily aggressive, actually, because there’s at least twenty taxis waiting in line, and more pulling up all the time. But Dean’s a guest here, he reminds himself, taking a deep breath in and out through his nose. He shouldn’t start out his trip by being judgy. (The deep breath was a mistake though. He’s in close proximity to a bunch of people who’ve just stepped off an airplane. BO is definitely an issue.)

Most of the cabs in line are tiny, ancient Volkswagens painted in lurid greens and yellows, the drivers looking various degrees of bored, but not at all bothered by the crowd of humans competing for their attention.

Dean lingers at the back of the crowd to start with, figuring maybe a lot of flights just arrived and the crowd is going to dissipate eventually. But every time somebody manages to make it into a cab, more people push in from behind. Also, he soon figures out that if he leaves a space of more than five inches between himself and the person in front of him, someone immediately steps in to fill it. After the third time this happens, he realizes politeness is not the way to go if he wants to get to Cas before his week is up.

“Fine,” he grunts. “If that’s how it is.”

When the next taxi pulls up, he shoulders his way to the front, wrenches open the back door and slides inside. As he pulls the door shut behind him, he thinks he catches a couple of people exchanging impressed nods, like he just passed some kind of test.

Blowing out a tired breath through his nose, he turns to the driver. His hands shake a little with residual adrenaline as he points to the paper with Cas’ address on it, praying that Cas didn’t get one of the Chinese characters wrong or something.

The driver looks young, maybe in his early twenties, and he’s got long bangs that flop down over his forehead. Actually, he kind of reminds Dean of Sam, all frowny forehead and skinny limbs. Dean even gets that same twitchy feeling in his hands, like all he wants to do is get a pair of scissors and give the kid a decent haircut.

The driver stares down at the address, then back up at Dean, expression completely blank

“Um…” Dean starts, trying desperately to remember the few basic phrases of Mandarin he memorized. “Wǒ xiǎng qù…” _I want to go…_

He stabs his finger at the paper, emphatically.

The driver’s face is blank for another beat, then he snorts, a big, teasing grin spreading across his face. In absolutely flawless English, he says, “Yeah, man. No problem. I know where that place is.”

And without another second’s hesitation, he pulls away from the curb.

It takes Dean a second to recover before he can ask, “You speak English?”

“Sure,” the guy says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. He smiles at Dean in the rearview mirror as he pulls onto a busy eight-lane highway without so much as a glance over his shoulder. Dean tries not to flinch. “Where do you think you are? This is _Beijing_.”

“Sorry,” Dean says, grimacing. “I, um… haven’t really had much of a chance to travel before. Wasn’t sure what to expect.”

“And you came here for your first trip!” the driver says, looking genuinely thrilled about it. “Welcome to China!” He pulls across four lanes of traffic in one smooth movement, completely ignoring the indignant honks of at least two other drivers he’s cutting off. Dean closes his eyes and reminds himself, _Cas. This is for Cas_.

“What’s your name?” the driver asks.

“Dean,” Dean manages to get out from between his clenched teeth. He’s white-knuckling the grab handle above the door. It suddenly seems pretty alarming that there isn’t a working seatbelt anywhere in sight. “What’s yours?”

“Shān Nánlù,” the guy says, something languid and musical about the way his voice rises and falls around the words. “But you can call me Freddo.”

That jostles Dean out of his fear of imminent death. “Like the guy in _The Godfather_?” Digging up his best Al Pacino impression, he drawls, “‘I know it was you, Fredo.’”

Freddo frowns at him in the rearview mirror. “I don’t know who that is. Freddo, man, F-r-e-d-d-o. Like the Italian for ‘cold.’”

“Okay? Why?”

Freddo spreads his arms wide in a gesture of _isn’t it obvious?,_ taking both hands off the steering wheel to do so. “Because I’m cool, of course.”

“Of course,” Dean agrees, counting the seconds — four — until Freddo’s hands return to the wheel.

“I don’t like ‘Dean,’” Freddo says, considering, as he runs a red light. “I think your name should be Rick.”

Dean tightens his death grip on the handle above the door. “Why the hell would my name be Rick?”

“You look like Rick Grimes, from _The Walking Dead_. You know…” Freddo takes both hands off the steering wheel again as he screeches to a halt at a red light, holding his arms straight in front of him and wiggling in his seat like he’s doing a zombie shuffle. “The one with the walkers?”

“Okay, what the hell? I look nothing like that guy.”

“No, you do,” Freddo insists, nodding furiously as the cab speeds up again, taking a corner so fast that Dean almost rolls all the way to the other side of the car. It’s a good thing he’s still holding on to that handle. “You’ve got the…” Freddo frowns, thinking. “The chin. Like a famous actor.”

Well, that makes no fucking sense, but Dean just flew halfway around the world to talk about his feelings, so “sense” is at best a tiny speck in the dust behind him right now.

“So what brings you to China?” Freddo asks, stopping at the edge of yet another intersection. Dean takes a minute to look outside. Five different highways seem to converge here, surrounded by high-rises on every side, and Dean can’t even figure out which traffic light is supposed to be theirs. His anxiety about Cas, temporarily sidelined by fear of being in a fiery car crash, resurfaces. He’s away from the safety of the airport now, with no idea of how to get back there. Fuck, he really should’ve told Cas he was coming.

“I’m, uh… here to see a friend.”

Freddo nods thoughtfully, digesting that information. “A friend or a… _friend_?” He punctuates the question with a smirk and a cock of his eyebrow.

And yeah, Dean might be here to talk about his feelings, but that doesn’t mean he’s up for discussing his love life — or lack of one — with a stranger. “Kind of a personal question, don’t you think? We met like five minutes ago.”

Freddo looks extremely satisfied, like Dean’s answer told him everything he needed to know. “Is she a Chinese girl?”

“He’s neither Chinese nor a girl,” Dean snaps, then clamps his mouth shut, realizing that if Freddo’s already drawn his own conclusions about what Dean’s here for, it’s entirely possible he’s just outed himself by accident. To a random dude who probably thinks guys who like guys are the scum of the earth.

“That’s cool,” Freddo says, shrugging. “I don’t judge.”

Mouth already half-open to make some excuse, Dean stops and closes it again. “Wait, really?”

Freddo shrugs again and pushes down on the gas, heading fearlessly into the chaos of the five-way intersection. “I have a friend who works at a gay club. I could give you his number. He’ll make sure you get real alcohol in your cocktails when you go.”

Dean squints at the back of Freddo’s head. “Real alcohol as opposed to what other kind?”

“The kind that made my cousin go blind.”

Dean’s torn between responding to _that_ new piece of information and staring up at a huge glass skyscraper they’re passing now, and whose shape is unlike anything he’s ever seen before. It looks sort of like a pair of pants.

“So do you want my friend’s number?” Freddo asks.

“Uh… thanks, no. My… friend and I, we’re not really the clubbing type.” Or didn’t use to be. Who knows how much Cas has changed since the last time they saw each other. And there’s the anxiety again, reminding Dean that he’s stupidly impulsive and probably made a huge mistake, coming here.

Before Dean can really start to panic again, Freddo pulls over to the side of the road, cutting off at least three other drivers this time. Startled by the sudden lack of motion, Dean looks around, taking in the scene outside the window.

They’ve stopped along a sidewalk, right at the edge of a massive square that’s surrounded by massive, intimidating heaps of concrete. Probably government buildings, if Dean had to guess. In any case, they wouldn’t look out of place in an old spy movie set in Communist Russia. This is more like what he figured China would look like.

“Are we… there?” he asks uncertainly.

“No. I just had a question,” Freddo says, turning fully in his seat to face Dean. “You’re in love with him, right?”

Dean gapes, trying to decide if he’s annoyed or reluctantly impressed by the guy’s complete lack of boundaries. Maybe a little bit of both. “Dude. Again. What’s with the super-personal questions?”

Freddo grins at him, totally unfazed. “Just trying to find out what the situation is. You seem pretty nervous.”

Dean should probably, definitely, get angry now, but he’s too exhausted and panicked to muster up the energy. Hell, he’s too exhausted and panicked to bother lying. “He doesn’t know I’m coming.”

Freddo whistles through his teeth. “Wow. You flew from America to China to see this guy, and you didn’t even tell him?”

“Sounds pretty stupid when you put it that way,” Dean says quietly, eyes fixed on a woman in a flowery dress who’s passing on the sidewalk, shielding herself from the scorching sun with a defeated-looking umbrella.

Freddo seems to think this over for a moment, then shakes his head. “No. It’s not stupid. It’s romantic. And if this guy doesn’t want to see you, at least you know he’s not worth the effort.” Freddo dives into the footwell of the passenger seat, surfacing with a scrap of paper and a pen. He writes out some digits in a messy scrawl and holds the paper out to Dean. “Here’s my number. If your friend kicks you out, I’ll find you a good, cheap place to stay, and you can hang out with me and my friends if you want, until you have to fly back home.” He grins. “We’re fun, and we know how to get good whiskey for cheap.”

A little shell-shocked, Dean accepts the scrap of paper. “How’d you know I like whiskey?”

Freddo rolls his eyes at him. “ _Everybody_ likes whiskey.”

And with that, he pulls back into traffic, only cutting off one other driver that time. About ten minutes later, he pulls up in front of a large group of high-rises that seem to be apartment buildings, judging by the air-con units in almost every window. The outside looks like it recently got a paint job, the white walls and ruby-red accents gleaming wetly in the sun. Just down the road, five identical-looking buildings are still under construction.

“Show me that address again,” Freddo says, squinting critically at the paper Dean passes him. “Okay. The building you want should be through there—” He points to an ornate, yellow-and-red gate. It almost looks like the entrance to a temple, but all Dean can see beyond it is a plain concrete square with some clotheslines strung across it. “The third one on the right.”

“Thanks, man,” Dean says. “How much do I owe you?”

“300 yuán.”

“Okay.” Dean starts to take out his wallet, which he thankfully stocked with local currency before he left, but Freddo throws out an arm to stop him.

“Dude, no. You’re supposed to haggle.”

“Um.” Dean blows out a deep breath through his nose. “Alright. I’ll give you 270.”

Freddo glares at him. “You suck at this.” He grabs hold of Dean’s wallet and pulls out a single 100 yuán bill. “There. Now get out, and don’t forget to call me. I want to know how it went.”

Even anxious and keyed-up as he is, Dean can’t suppress a smile. “Yeah, alright. Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.”

With a clap of his hand on Freddo’s shoulder, Dean slides out of the car and retrieves his suitcase from the trunk. On slightly wobbly legs, he makes his way through the gate at the edge of the apartment complex. The rumble of the cab’s engine as it pulls away from the curb, to the tune of honking from several other cars, is almost upsetting. Because now he’s alone again.

Dean finds the third building on the right and steps through the open doorway. He finds himself at the bottom of a windowless stairwell, blinking while his eyes adjust to the near-darkness. There’s a strong smell of cooking in the air, mixed with something unpleasantly smoky — like someone tried to burn a piece of plastic. There’s also no elevator.

It probably should have occurred to Dean that he doesn’t even know what apartment Cas lives in. He stares down at the piece of paper in his hand, but the only number on it is the one he recognizes as the address of the building. He looks around and, to his relief, finds some mailboxes tucked away in the deeper shadows behind the stairwell. His heart beats a little faster when he sees that one of them is labeled “Castiel Novak” in Cas’ familiar, neat print. The mailbox reads “8” next to some kind of Chinese character, and he figures that means Cas lives on the eighth floor. It’s the best clue he’s got anyway.

With a sigh, Dean starts his long climb, dragging his suitcase behind him. Every floor seems to have exactly two apartments, one on either side of the landing. Dean remembers Cas telling him once that in China, architects tend to build high as opposed to wide, because of how many people they have to accommodate.

By the time Dean gets to the eighth-floor landing, he’s thoroughly winded and keyed up with anxiety again.

Picking one of the two doors at random, Dean knocks and waits. And waits some more. His heart rate, barely recovered from the climb up here, picks up the pace again. What if Cas isn’t even here? It’s Saturday, so he shouldn’t be at the office. But maybe he’s on a trip? Or out with friends. Or a boyfriend.

Dean knocks again, swallowing down the bitter taste on his tongue.

On his third knock, the door to the apartment across the landing opens, and a woman about Dean’s age steps out, wearing Hello Kitty pajamas and a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. Her long hair is tied in a messy ponytail.

She looks kind of confused, but not unfriendly, so Dean gives her an awkward little wave. “Um. Hi.”

She blinks at him for a second, and Dean almost launches into another one of his memorized phrases. (“Wǒ bù huì shuō zhōngwén.” _I don’t speak Chinese_.)

But then she snorts and doubles over laughing, and Dean’s so confused that he drops his suitcase. It clatters down the stairs behind him.

“Sorry,” she says, wheezing as she catches her breath. “Hi.” She pushes up her glasses to wipe at her eyes, still hiccupping with barely suppressed laughter. “You’re Dean.”

Dean gapes at her. “Um. How did you know that?”

“Cas showed me pictures of you,” the woman says, blowing out a deep breath and shaking her head, an expression on her face that could best be described as _fond_. “He did say you were very handsome, but he didn’t say you were _both_ idiots.”

“Okay…?” Trying desperately to get the conversation back on track, Dean points back at Cas’ door, still firmly closed. “Do you know… is he…”

“Oh, he’s not here,” she says, sounding like that fact makes her incredibly happy, and Dean would resent that if he wasn’t so damn tired.

“Great,” he mumbles. “Do you know where he is?”

The woman bites down on her lip, like she’s trying to keep from laughing again. “You look like you could use a drink. Come inside and I’ll tell you.”

Too exhausted to fight, Dean trails after her. He’ll worry about his suitcase later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up in Chapter 2: Where is Cas??
> 
> Here's a picture of the [pants building](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCTV_Headquarters).


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's see what Cas has been up to...

_Ten Years Ago_

“Dean! Where are you? _No Reservations_ is starting!”

“Coming,” Dean calls from the kitchen. When he emerges, he’s somehow balancing a giant bowl of popcorn, a bowl of nachos _and_ two beers.

“You know I would have helped carry some of that stuff if you’d asked, right?” Castiel says, watching Dean’s slow progress across the living room with ill-concealed amusement.

“What?” A little frazzled, Dean looks up from where he’s gingerly setting down the snacks and drinks on their wobbly coffee table. “Oh, nah, it’s fine. I got it.”

Castiel studies the overflowing popcorn pile and the giant heap of fragrant, cheesy nachos. “Are we expecting ten guests I didn’t know about?”

“Whatever, man,” Dean says easily, plopping down on the couch next to Castiel. “You know the two of us can pack this away, especially when we’re watching _this_ damn show. Always makes me hungry.”

They do in fact go through the snacks with alarming speed once the episode starts playing. In this particular one, the host is traveling across Japan and China to taste the local cuisine. Even if some of the dishes don’t look exactly appetizing, Castiel loves the idea of retracing all those steps and trying all those same foods. Maybe someday he will.

About halfway through the episode, he notices that Dean has started to drift closer to him on the couch, their shoulders and thighs now brushing. This isn’t by any means unusual, because Dean is by nature a tactile and affectionate person. Castiel cherishes every little touch they share, no matter how accidental, because he’s had an enormous, pathetic crush on his friend almost since the day they met. But Dean has never expressed interest in anything more than friendship, so Castiel long ago resigned himself to the “best friend and roommate” role.

On screen, the host has now arrived in Beijing, and he’s tasting what purports to be the city’s best Peking duck. It looks incredible — juicy pieces of brown meat wrapped in soft pancakes with fresh, crisp green onions and thick plum sauce.

Castiel turns his head to whisper, “Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could go to China and stop by that same restaurant?” The motion puts his mouth dangerously close to Dean’s ear, and his heart beats just a little faster at the idea of closing the rest of that distance and breathing a soft kiss against the delicate curve of skin. 

“I guess,” Dean whispers back, and Castiel feels him shiver a little. He’s probably cold; they can’t afford to spend too much on heat, so their apartment can get a little chilly sometimes. “Not really my thing.” 

Castiel reluctantly turns his focus back to the television screen. After a minute, Dean says, “When I was a kid, my dad always kept us on the road, you know? Never had a place to settle. It’s not a great way to live.”

Castiel nods. He knows this about Dean’s childhood, though Dean doesn’t like to talk about it much. Still, with tempting images of undiscovered food and unfamiliar sights dancing across the screen in front of him, he can’t help asking, “But… don’t you want to travel _at all_? Just… sometimes? Just for a week or two?”

“Maybe.” Dean shrugs. “But not to, like, anyplace that’s across an ocean from here. Nobody’s getting me on a plane ever, I can tell you that. The damn things aren’t natural.”

Castiel chuckles weakly. He always knew he would never be able to share his future with Dean in the way he truly wanted, but somehow… the knowledge that they want such different things out of life makes that sad fact all the more real. 

Taking a despondent sip of his beer, Castiel retreats to the far corner of the couch. He thinks Dean looks a little disappointed too, though Castiel can’t for the life of him imagine why.

***

_Present Day_

A little past eleven p.m., there’s a knock at Castiel’s door.

When he first moved to Beijing, it alarmed him that his neighbors would come by at all hours of the day or night to say hello, bring food or invite him on outings. Nowadays, he’s used to it.

Or maybe it’s just that his novelty as the building’s resident American has mostly worn off. These days, he really only gets surprise visits from one person anymore: Betty, his neighbor from across the landing.

He can never predict what time she’ll come by, because she rarely lets him know in advance. But at least she knocks now. (Neither of them particularly wanted to repeat the incident where she walked in on Castiel having sex with a blond, green-eyed French expat. Castiel isn’t usually the type to pursue hookups, but he thought he should give it a try just once, to distract himself from the constant, dull ache of missing Dean. It didn’t work.)

“Come in, Betty,” he calls, not bothering to look up from the blueprint he’s staring at on his laptop.

The door opens and Betty sweeps in, flinging herself dramatically onto his couch.

“How was your date?” Castiel asks, lips twitching as he takes in Betty’s “date outfit” of worn jeans and a faded Korean band shirt. It’s no different from what she always wears, and her refusal to “dress nice” is a constant source of tension with her mother, as she has told him often and at length.

Betty groans and flings an arm across her eyes, the motion pushing her glasses up against her face in a way that has to be extremely uncomfortable, but is apparently worth it for dramatic effect. “Boys are stupid.”

Castiel cocks his head at her. “I’m offended. _I’m_ a boy.”

“Yes, but you have boy problems too, so I’m feeling… solidity?” Betty moves her arm to raise a questioning eyebrow at him.

“Solidarity,” Castiel says, setting his laptop down on the coffee table.

“Yes. That.” Betty goes back to pouting at the ceiling.

When Castiel first came to China, he worried his sexuality would be a problem. He was prepared to keep quiet about it, even as the thought of not sharing that part of himself with anyone weighed on him. But then Betty swept into his life and put his concerns to rest in a single conversation, which occurred the day after she walked in on him mid-hookup.

“So you’re gay! Great. My mom’s going to hate it,” she said happily.

“Why?” Castiel asked, his hackles up immediately. “Because she doesn’t like gay people?”

Betty scoffed. “No, she doesn’t care about that. She’ll be mad because I told her I have a handsome, blue-eyed American neighbor, and she wanted you to marry me and give her pretty grandchildren.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Castiel said, somewhat snippily.

“Well, it’s not like I _wanted_ to marry you,” Betty said, crossing her arms.

“Well, good.”

“Good.”

After that, they both started laughing, and they’ve been friends ever since.

“So what was wrong with _this_ one?” Castiel asks, because he doesn’t exactly feel like having a conversation about his own boy troubles. Betty knows he left someone behind in America, though he’s never shared much beyond Dean’s name and the fact that it’s been hard to stay in touch. God, when was the last time they actually talked? He can’t remember.

Betty squints at Castiel in that particular, discerning way of hers, but answers the question. “He wanted to go get drunk with his friends, and when I said I didn’t feel like doing that, he acted like an asshole. So I yelled at him and left.”

“Good for you,” Castiel says, and closes his laptop, resigned to not getting any more work done tonight.

“How about you?” Betty asks shrewdly, and Castiel should have known he wasn’t going to get off that easily. “Have you talked to _your_ boy lately?”

“No,” Castiel admits. “But it’s fine. Before I left, we were… very close friends for many years. We won’t lose touch just because we haven’t talked for a few…” Again, he tries to remember how long it’s actually been. Definitely more than a week. Maybe more than two weeks.

“What you need,” Betty says, as she heaves herself off the couch and stalks across the room to Castiel’s small kitchen unit, “is báijiǔ.”

Castiel trails after her. “First of all, I never need báijiǔ. Báijiǔ isn’t a drink; it’s a torture device that should be banned by the Geneva Convention. Second of all, I don’t _have_ any báijiǔ.” Betty reaches into the cupboard above Castiel’s stove and pulls out a thick-bellied bottle of clear liquor. Castiel squints at it. “Betty, why do I have báijiǔ?”

Betty shrugs. “I came by a couple of days ago and left you some.”

“I think I’d remember that,” Castiel says, frowning, even as Betty moves to another cabinet and pulls out two shot glasses.

“You weren’t here,” Betty says, uncapping the bottle.

“I wasn’t… how the hell did you get in?”

“The building supervisor is my uncle.” Betty pours them each a shot and pushes one at Castiel. “Drink.”

“How did I not know about this?” Castiel asks, grimacing as the sharp, grainy smell of the liquor hits him. With a sigh, he downs the shot and immediately starts coughing. Betty swallows hers as well, exhaling a small sigh of appreciation.

“It was… how do you say? A ‘who needs to know’ thing.”

“On a need-to-know basis,” Castiel corrects automatically, even as he tries to scrape the foul taste of the liquor off his tongue with his teeth.

“Yes,” Betty says, nodding vigorously. “That.” She pours him another. “Common. Drink up.”

“I don’t want to,” Castiel says petulantly, glaring down at the glass.

Betty taps his shin with one of her sneaker-clad feet. “There’s a night vendor downstairs,” she says, her voice light and airy in the way that means she’s found the winning argument. “I could go get us your favorite dumplings to make the liquor go down better.” She taps his shin again, harder. “Maybe a few chicken skewers?”

“I thought you didn’t want to get drunk,” Castiel says, but he knows he’s losing the fight. Chicken skewers off the street food carts are his greatest weakness, and Betty knows it.

“I didn’t want to get drunk with _idiots_ ,” Betty says, already turning to go for food. “But I do want to get drunk with _you_ and talk about our boy problems.”

Castiel rolls his eyes at her, but picks up his second shot. “Fine.”

*** 

Castiel groans as he rests his head on his arms, even the dim light of his favorite corner restaurant too bright for his hungover brain. It’s not even noon yet, and it’s Sunday. He should be _sleeping_.

“Why did you _do_ this to me?” he mumbles. “Why did I _let_ you do this to me?”

“Don’t be dramatic. You drank less than I did. And eating some food will make you feel better.” As if to underline her point, Betty spears a piece of eggplant with her chopsticks and chews it with evident enjoyment. As per usual, she ordered more than a dozen dishes of assorted vegetables, meats and stews, at least half of which Castiel is sure aren’t even on the menu. It seems like enough food to feed a small army for a week, let alone two average-sized people. 

“Eat,” Betty says, much too loudly for Castiel’s taste, as she pushes a bowl of grilled pork in his general direction.

The food looks delicious as always, and yet, Castiel’s stomach roils at the mere idea of ingesting any of it. He and his insides are having something of a violent disagreement over his excessive consumption of báijiǔ last night.

After another minute of quiet suffering, he lifts his head to find a waitress has appeared carrying two shots of báijiǔ on a tray. Castiel gulps, nausea welling up again.

“You have to drink some to help your stomach,” Betty says, putting one of the shots in front of him. “There’s an expression for that in English, right?”

“Hair of the dog,” Castiel mumbles into his forearm.

Betty snorts. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not in a joking mood,” Castiel says, eyeing the liquor balefully from underneath his lashes.

“Just drink up,” Betty says. With a sigh, and holding his nose, Castiel does.

Betty watches him, unblinking, until she’s satisfied he’s swallowed.

“So when are you leaving?”

Castiel blinks at her, confused. “What? Leaving?”

“Yeah. You don’t remember? You booked a plane ticket last night.”

“What?” Castiel’s nausea, briefly appeased by the báijiǔ, rears up again. “A plane ticket where?”

“Well…” Betty’s eyes take on a faraway, dreamy look that immediately alarms Castiel. “You started talking about your friend Dean a lot. How he has very green eyes and nice, soft hair and the prettiest smile.”

“Oh God. Kill me now.” Castiel lets his head fall back onto his arm, but he jerks up again when he remembers what they were talking about. “Wait. Did I…?”

“Yes,” Betty says, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “You booked a ticket to go see him.”

“Oh no. No no no.” Castiel pulls out his phone and thumbs frantically through his email inbox. There’s no evidence he sent anything to Dean, thank God, but sure enough: there’s a confirmation email for a flight to Kansas City, via Los Angeles, leaving in less than a week. And it’s a non-refundable ticket. Wonderful.

“Why didn’t you stop me?” he croaks.

Betty shrugs as she pushes a bowl of chicken stew towards him. “First, I was drunk too. Second, it was fun to watch. And third, you’re in love with Dean and you should go tell him. It will be _very_ romantic.”

Castiel scowls at her, even knowing that a) Betty will not be cowed and b) it’s not actually her fault that he did an incredibly stupid thing. At least in theory, he’s supposed to be an adult of sound mind, capable of making his own decisions.

Speaking of decisions, what is he supposed to do about the flight? Maybe he can still call the airline and cancel. Someone might even take pity on his past, inebriated self and give him a refund after all.

Yes. That’s definitely what he should do.

*** 

But what if he did go?

Over the next twenty-four hours, Castiel keeps telling himself that he’ll call the airline and cancel the flight — just as soon as he’s not so busy.

The argument is mostly sound until he calls his boss in Kansas and asks to take next week off. She’s not happy about the short notice, but she approves his request. The next morning, Castiel lets his two staff members in the Beijing office know that they might have to cope without him for a week.

After work on Tuesday and Wednesday, he doesn’t go home straight away. Instead, he jumps on the subway and travels to some of his favorite spots in the city, trying to think. He visits the Summer Palace, with its gorgeous temples, lakes and gardens. He wanders past the small restaurants and hidden shops of the hútòngs — traditional neighborhoods of courtyard houses crammed along narrow, lopsided alleys. He stops by the galleries housed in a cluster of former military factories, to soak in the atmosphere of creativity and unbridled potential that seems to permeate every corner.

They’re all places he loves, and he’s grateful he got to experience them. But everywhere he goes, he finds himself thinking about how much happier he would be if he’d gotten to make some of these memories with Dean. Would Dean have been fascinated by the lake pavilion shaped like a Mississippi paddle steamer? Would he have been amused by the exact replica of the Central Perk coffee shop from _Friends_ on the ground floor of an office building? Would he have been as wide-eyed as Castiel, riding up the dragon-shaped escalator at Longqing Gorge?

The problem is that Dean will never want to share any of these things with Castiel. He’s always made it clear that he loves being settled and isn’t particularly interested in travel — has even been afraid of it, given how he feels about planes. So there is very little chance that Dean would ever agree to visit here, much less stay on a more permanent basis.

Then again, if Castiel has learned anything, it’s that he shouldn’t make assumptions about Dean. For as long as he can remember, he’d thought Dean was interested in nothing but friendship between them. But then, on the night before Castiel left for China, Dean made a move. They never had a chance to truly talk about what it meant, and Dean still encouraged Castiel to go, but... what if? What if there’s a chance of something here that Castiel never even dared to hope for?

If that chance does exist, it has a definite expiration date. The past ten months have shown that it would be distressingly easy for Dean to simply fade from Castiel’s life if they both allow it to happen. 

At the very least, Castiel decides, he should put all his cards on the table. And _that_ is a conversation best had in person.

*** 

Six days after his night of báijiǔ-fueled insanity, Castiel finds himself behind the wheel of a rental car, driving the familiar streets of Kansas City at five in the morning. The sun is not yet up, and Castiel can’t help but feel like an intruder in his own city. He’s been away for less than a year, but he’s uncertain of the welcome he’ll get from Dean, and there isn’t anyone else here that he’s particularly eager to see.

As he pulls onto Dean’s street — _their_ street, until recently — he wonders whether he made a mistake, not telling Dean he was planning to visit. But he didn’t want to give either one of them a chance to think of all the reasons why it would be foolish for Castiel to come here in the first place. So, for once in his life, he decided to be impulsive.

Besides, what’s the point of a big romantic gesture if you tell the other person about it in advance?

When Castiel pulls up in front of the two-bedroom duplex he and Dean used to share, the windows are dark, which is to be expected. What’s unexpected, however, is that Dean’s Impala isn’t in the driveway. What if Dean has gone to visit someone? Or worse, what if he’s spending the night with someone who is very much not Castiel?

Feeling a little unsteady, Castiel gets out of the car and starts up the walkway to the front door. It’s still incredibly early in the morning. Castiel briefly considers retrieving the spare key from under the fake rock by the door, but if Dean _is_ home, he’d be rightfully alarmed to hear someone unlocking his front door when he’s not expecting anyone.

So, trembling with nerves, Castiel raises his hand to knock.

Before his fist can even make contact with the wood, his phone buzzes in his coat pocket. He frowns down at the display, which shows a Chinese number. He did give his American cell number to a few colleagues at work, in case there’s an emergency while he’s gone, and he gave it to Betty in case something happens at his apartment that he needs to know about.

He slides his thumb across the screen to answer the call. “Hello?”

“Uh... hey, Cas.”

There’s a rushing in Castiel’s ears — a white noise that seems to stifle all conscious thought. “Dean?”

From the other end of the line, a slightly more distant voice calls, “And Betty! You’re on speakerphone.”

“Dean, are you...” Castiel knuckles at his temple, willing his travel-sluggish brain to make sense of what is happening. “How can you... What the...”

Dean chuckles, a warm and lovely sound even at a distance. “That’s about what _I_ said when Betty told me you went to Kansas.” Castiel can hear the smile in Dean’s voice when he adds, “I’m in Beijing, Cas. I came to see _you_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will these boys ever manage to be in the same place at the same time? Chapter 3 has the answer, and should post no later than Saturday!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here are some pictures of [Beijing's Olympic stadium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_National_Stadium) and [Aquatics Center](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_National_Aquatics_Center). For... reasons.

It feels odd, sitting on the familiar, saggy two-seater couch in the living room without Dean there to keep Castiel company.

But he can’t bring himself to be too upset about it, because somehow, confusingly and miraculously, Dean is staring back at him out of a Skype window on his laptop screen. What’s more, there can be no mistaking the scene behind Dean for anything other than the living room of Castiel’s Beijing apartment, because just to the right of Dean’s head is the framed painting of two birds of paradise that Castiel picked up at a market stall a few months ago.

Somehow, seeing that small bit of confirmation makes the whole thing real.

“You’re in China,” Castiel says, still feeling a little dazed. “You’re really in China.”

“Yeah, Cas,” Dean says, looking a little shy. “I, um. Sorry. I guess I... should’ve told you I was planning to come.”

Castiel chuckles helplessly. “Well, it’s not as though I exactly have grounds to be upset, is it? Maybe I should’ve told _you_ I was planning to come.”

One corner of Dean’s mouth ticks up minutely. “Yeah. This whole thing is just... just bizarre.”

Castiel eyes the background of Dean’s call window suspiciously. “Is Betty still with you?”

“Nah. She went to get some food I think?” Dean shifts on the couch, hands twisting nervously in his lap. “She seems nice.”

“Don’t let that fool you,” Castiel says darkly. “She has hidden depths.”

“I can see that.” Dean huffs a small chuckle before his eyes flick away from the screen, down to his feet. “Cas, why did you fly over there?”

“Why did _you_ fly to China?” Castiel shoots back, feeling very strongly that that’s the more pertinent question of the two. “I thought you _hated_ flying.”

“Yeah, well...” Dean’s eyes still won’t come up to meet the screen. “Turns out, for the right person, I can get over it.” 

Castiel should probably say something in response, something extremely heartfelt and possibly eloquent. But his thoughts and feelings are in complete disarray, and he wouldn’t know where to begin. Thankfully, Dean breaks the silence for him.

“You offered to stay, Cas, you remember that?”

“Of course,” Castiel croaks. The feel of Dean’s warm, smooth skin under his fingers, the precious closeness of him as they lay on the bed together that night, are never very far from his mind.

Dean nods, swallowing hard enough that the motion of his throat is visible even on a grainy camera image that’s traveled halfway around the world. Dean finally looks up, something desperately vulnerable in his eyes, and Castiel has never hated the distance between them more.

“Well, I said you should go, but it was because... because I thought it was what you wanted, and I never thought you’d be happy just staying with a boring homebody like me. I never thought we could have... what I _wanted_ to have with you. Cas, I—”

Castiel suddenly finds that he doesn’t want to hear what Dean is about to say. Not like this. Not when there’s no possible way he can draw Dean close and kiss him until they’re both short of breath.

“I’m coming back there,” Castiel says, his chest feeling too small to contain the almost painful bubble of joy and hope expanding inside it. “Dean, I have... something to say to you. But I don’t want to say it to a computer screen. I want... I want to be there with you when I do.”

Dean’s face slackens with surprise and stays that way for so long that Castiel starts to worry the call has dropped. Then, the brightest, most beautiful smile Castiel thinks he has ever seen dawns on Dean’s face. “Yeah, Cas. Yeah, I... I want that too.” 

Castiel returns Dean’s smile, is helpless to do anything else, but then Dean’s face falls. “The thing is though, Cas, I’ve only got a week, and I can’t exactly afford to move my flight or take more time off.”

Castiel wants nothing more than to reach right through the screen and smooth out the worried lines on Dean’s forehead with his thumb. Or his tongue. He’s not picky. But as neither one is currently an option, he settles for verbal reassurance. “I’ll take the first flight back I can get. I’ll be there before you know it. And then we can... talk.”

“I’d like that,” Dean says, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth again.

They say goodbye soon after that, and Castiel puts a not insignificant dent into his savings, booking the first available flight back to Beijing. He texts the flight details to Dean, providing an arrival time that’s approximately five hours later than he will in fact arrive.

Next, he sends a text to Betty, smiling at her response. Then, he heads for the kitchen, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt as the last details of his plan take shape in his head.

It’s time to try for one more romantic gesture.

*** 

Even after less than two days in Beijing, Dean has learned that summer days can be pretty much torture, the wet heat of them settling into every crease of his skin and making him uncomfortable almost as soon as he steps outside.

In that sense, the plaza next to the Olympic stadium is probably not a great place to be, because it’s huge and sadly lacking in trees, or much of anything else that could provide shade.

It’s early yet, just before nine a.m., and the heat is still bearable for now, but something about the hazy flicker of the air tells Dean that it’s going to be a sticky day. A long day, too, because he’s already been up for something like five hours. He woke up in Cas’ bed (alone, sadly) at about four this morning, and even though he felt exhausted, getting back to sleep just wasn’t happening. Jetlag definitely won’t make it on his list of favorite things about traveling.

Pork buns though? Those are going on the list. As he strolls across the plaza, making his way closer to the stadium, he takes another bite of doughy goodness, sighing happily at the comforting taste of the still-warm, juicy meat filling. He’d picked up a couple of the buns from a roadside stall because they just smelled so damn good, and it was an awesome decision. Not to mention, he’s kind of proud of himself for managing to order his own breakfast, even if it did involve a lot more pointing than actual words.

Betty was the one who recommended trying some street food, and she was also weirdly insistent that his first stop of the day should be here, to watch the locals do their morning exercises. It sounded kind of awkward to Dean, coming here just to gawk at people as they work out, but Betty walked him all the way to the subway and told him exactly where to get off to get to the stadium, so Dean figured he’d better do what she wanted. She might look small and harmless, but, kind of like Charlie, she seems like she can be pretty damn scary if she wants.

Halfway across the plaza, he does pass a group of older folks doing exercises in a half-circle around a boombox that’s playing some kind of slow, jazzy tune. It’s weirdly soothing to watch, especially paired with the pattern of rainbow colors flashing across the walls of a nearby building. The building’s outline is almost perfectly square, but the way the walls are constructed makes them look like they’re covered in soap bubbles.

Back during the 2008 Olympics, Dean used to see that place on TV all the time, and he’s pretty sure it was where they held the swim competitions. He and Cas spent most of a month glued to Olympics coverage that summer, watching everything from synchronized swimming to volleyball.

Once, when there weren’t any events to cover, the channel brought on a chef to shape and bake fortune cookies in the studio. Cas was fascinated and ended up developing an obsession with making the perfect fortune cookie. Dean made fun of him at first, because Cas had never baked a thing in his life before that, but after a while, he got into it too.

They had an awesome time, making six or seven totally misshapen and basically inedible batches before they finally got it right. At which point, they started getting competitive over who could write the most ridiculous fortunes to put inside. Stuff like, _Beware of green-eyed men who love their cars too much._ Or _Awful things will happen if you leave dirty dishes in the sink again._

It’s one of Dean’s favorite memories, and he actually ended up keeping one of the fortunes Cas wrote. It wasn’t even one of the really funny ones, but it just… stuck with him.

He pauses, still at least two hundred yards away from the stadium, and pulls out his wallet. The tiny slip of paper is tucked into one of the compartments, worn and creased from frequent handling. It says, _The middle of the road is safer to walk on. But the grass is greener along the edge._

It sounded way too New Age-y for Dean the first time he read it, but he’s been thinking about it a lot lately, and he thinks he knows now, what it might mean: to get good things, you sometimes have to take a risk. That’s what he did by getting on that plane to Beijing, and unless he really misread Cas’ reaction on their call yesterday, it’ll pay off for him when he sees Cas in person.

Grinning to himself with a giddy mix of nerves and anticipation, Dean walks the rest of the way across the plaza, until he’s right by the stadium. He remembers the way it looked on TV, seen from the air: like a bird’s nest, with its steel beams twisted around and through each other like twigs. Even up close, the effect still works. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it? I spent so much time staring at this place on a screen, wishing I was there. And now we both are.”

At the sound of the low, familiar rumble, Dean spins around so fast, he almost loses his balance. Cas is behind him, eyes bright with mischief, but the shy curve of his mouth suggests something tentative and maybe a little hopeful. “Hello, Dean.”

It’s hard to tell _what_ Dean’s feelings are doing at the moment. He feels like a pinball, buffeted back and forth between surprise, delight, nervousness and just a hint of betrayal. “Wait, what... how are you here already? Your flight isn’t coming in for another five hours! I was gonna come pick you up at the airport!”

Cas tilts his head, lips quirked up in that closed-lip almost-smile that always does something funny to Dean’s insides. “Do I get a hug?”

“Fuck, man. Of course.” Dean surges forward, the last of his pork bun forgotten in his hand as he pulls Cas close and smells the staleness of plane air, but also that warm, comforting, familiar scent that’s just _Cas_. His heart speeds up just a little as he remembers the last time he got to hold Cas close like this, and what happened right after.

“I missed you,” Cas whispers against the side of Dean’s neck, and Dean can feel the curve of a small smile against his skin. “Thank you for coming all the way here to see me.”

Dean huffs a small sound, halfway between a scoff and a chuckle. “Would’ve worked out better if you’d actually been here.”

Cas draws back, and Dean immediately misses his warmth even in the steadily increasing heat of the day. Seen up close, Cas looks tired, with at least two days’ stubble and deep dark bags under his eyes. His shirt is rumpled, the sleeves rolled up unevenly. He’s standing next to a big yellow suitcase and carrying a messenger bag, so he clearly came here straight from the airport.

He’s the most beautiful thing Dean’s ever seen.

“You could’ve told me you were coming,” Cas says, humor glinting in his eyes.

“Look who’s talking.” There’s a huge grin pulling at Dean’s cheeks now. He doesn’t think he could stop smiling if he tried. Not that he wants to anyway.

“I... I brought you something.” Cas suddenly looks nervous as he unzips his messenger bag and starts digging around in it. “It got a little smooshed.”

He holds out a small package wrapped in newspaper. Dean shoves the last bite of pork bun into his mouth and accepts the package, his fingers feeling awkward and clumsy as they work at the tape. When he finally gets the paper unwrapped, a sealed Ziploc bag drops into his hand. It holds a single fortune cookie.

“Do you remember when we used to make these together?” Cas asks, sounding a little uncertain. “During the—”

“The Olympics, yeah.”

“I gave you a late arrival time for my plane on purpose, and I asked Betty to get you here so I could meet you. I know we both planned a surprise that didn’t work out, but I thought... with a track record that awful, the third time was bound to be lucky, right?”

Dean can’t for the life of him think of anything to say to that. His eyes are caught on Cas’ face — the sharp, familiar lines of it, the hopeful warmth in his expression.

“Well? Are you going to eat it?” The merest suggestion of a smile hovers around Cas’ mouth, but his hands twitch just a little, in the way that means he’s barely keeping it together.

“Oh, um. Yeah. Sure.” Dean almost fumbles the Ziploc bag in his haste to get it open. When he finally manages to get a grip on the cookie, it’s perfect — crisp and crumbly and the exact shape it’s supposed to be. He breaks the cookie in half to reveal a small slip of paper tucked inside. Hands trembling, Dean pulls out the paper.

It reads, in Cas’ distinctive, neat print, _You will meet a handsome man at the Olympic stadium. He will tell you he loves you, and ask you to love him in return._

Dean swallows around a sudden lump in his throat. He takes a deep breath out, trying to steady himself. “You were pretty confident this plan was gonna work out, huh? What if Betty hadn’t managed to get me here?”

He looks up to see Cas is smiling, even as the beginnings of tears are gathering at the corners of his gorgeous blue eyes. “I had all the faith in the world that Betty would be able to scare you into doing anything. That’s certainly the effect she has on _me_.”

Dean chuckles, the sound coming out a little wet. 

“So, um. We’re here.” He waves vaguely at the stadium behind them, never taking his eyes off Cas. “Olympic stadium, check. Handsome man, check. I was told to expect—”

“I love you,” Cas blurts out. “I love you so much, Dean. You’re my best friend and the kindest person I know, and over these past few months, I’ve missed you more than I ever thought possible.” Cas steps forward and reaches out, taking one of Dean’s hands in his. “I... I wanted to move here. I really did. And I’m glad I got the experience of living in a new place, trying new food, doing challenging work, meeting new people. But none of it means anything if I lose you from my life.”

Cas’ expression is painfully earnest now, his hand clutching Dean’s tightly like he’s still afraid Dean might pull away if Cas lets him.

“Never gonna happen, Cas,” Dean says softly, cupping one side of Cas’ face with his free hand. He takes another deep, steadying breath, taking in the hopeless mess of Cas’ hair, the small lines around his eyes, the way his tie sits just a little crooked against his throat. And suddenly, he can’t for the life of him remember why he didn’t say the words years ago, when it’s just so damn obvious that he means them with everything he’s got.

“I love you too, Cas. So much.”

Cas steps even closer. “Good. That’s good.”

A single tear slides down Cas’ face, and Dean strokes his thumb across Cas’ cheek to wipe it away. “What do we think the policy is on two dudes kissing in the middle of a public square in China?”

Cas’ lips pull down in a small grimace. “Probably not favorable.”

Dean nods, moving his hand to the back of Cas’ neck and tangling his fingers in the soft curls of hair there. “Then let’s get the hell out of here.”

“That sounds good,” Cas says, leaning into Dean’s touch.

With effort, Dean manages to take his hands off Cas and turn away, in the direction of the subway station. He’s not usually one for running, but he’d sprint back to the apartment if Cas wanted him to, except Cas has put a hand on Dean’s arm, holding him back. “Dean, I just want you to know, I... I’ll do whatever it takes to make this work. And I mean _whatever_. I’ll get on the next flight back to Kansas with you and never go back to China, if that’s what you want. I could—”

“Hey, Cas?”

Cas exhales a deep breath, looking a little anxious. “Yes?”

“I’m all in. Whatever you decide to do, or need to do, I’ll be here. But... can we go someplace more private now?”

Cas’ expression melts into relief, and something just a little bit darker. “I think that could be arranged.”

*** 

The trip back to Castiel’s apartment is basically agony. The subway is crowded with the morning rush, and he stands wedged almost painfully close against Dean inside the train car. It’s the worst kind of temptation, having Dean right here with him, and yet being unable to touch him the way he desperately wants to.

After the longest half-hour of Castiel’s life, they finally stumble up the stairs to the eighth floor of his building, Castiel’s hands shaking as he attempts to unlock the door to his apartment... only to find that it wasn’t locked in the first place.

He opens the door, half-expecting to find his furniture gone and his possessions strewn across the floor. What he finds instead is Betty, sitting on his couch with her feet propped up on the coffee table, reading a magazine.

“Well?” she asks, eyes darting between them. “How did it go?”

“How do you keep getting in here?” Castiel means for the question to come out at least somewhat annoyed, but his tone lands much closer to fondness.

“I told you, the apartment supervisor is my uncle,” Betty says. She springs off the couch and gives both Castiel and Dean a once-over. “You guys look happy.”

“We are,” Castiel says, another smile pulling at his cheeks. He’s smiled a lot today — more than he can remember doing in a long time. “And thank you again for your help with that. But now I very much need you to get out of here.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry,” Betty says, sauntering to the door. “I don’t need to see you have sex again. One time was enough.”

Dean spins around so fast, he almost jostles Betty on her way out. “Excuse me?”

Betty leans toward him and whispers, conspiratorial, “Cas had many boy problems when he came here. But I think he’s okay now.”

With that proclamation, she walks out and shuts the door behind her, leaving Castiel and Dean finally, blissfully, alone.

“Okay,” Dean says slowly, then points an admonishing finger at Castiel. “You are definitely telling me _that_ story at some point.”

“Fine,” Castiel agrees, stepping closer until his chest is mere inches from Dean’s. “But... priorities?”

“Yeah,” Dean whispers, and ducks his chin. His lips brush against Castiel’s, no more than a gentle nudge. That won’t do at all. Castiel tilts his head and presses back firmly, coaxing Dean to open for him with the insistent push of his lips and the slide of his tongue. With a low moan, Dean does, his beautiful mouth wet and pliant.

“Wanted this, Cas,” Dean says, the words muffled against the skin of Castiel’s throat, where Dean is trailing a very distracting line of kisses. “Wanted this for so long.”

“Me too,” Castiel says, nodding frantically even as he ducks down to capture Dean’s mouth again, fisting one hand in his hair and another in his t-shirt, wanting to be as close as possible.

Dean responds with a guttural sound that sends a bolt of heat all the way through Castiel’s chest and down to his groin. Every part of him is thrumming with the need to back Dean up against a surface, any surface, so they can push and grind against each other. Half-dazed with the taste of Dean’s mouth and the warm, familiar smell of him, Castiel pushes forward until Dean’s back hits the door. This close together, Castiel can feel the hard line of Dean’s dick pressing against his thigh. With a low, needy sound, he pushes one of his legs between Dean’s, his own erection straining against the front of his slacks.

Before things can go any further, Dean pulls back, much to Castiel’s consternation. But Dean doesn’t look upset or uncomfortable. His lips are red, slick and kiss-bitten, cheeks flushes and hair disheveled where Castiel’s hands tugged at it in an effort to get closer, faster, _more_.

“I could do this all day,” Dean says, his voice low and wrecked, and Castiel feels another flare of arousal at the sound. “But you just flew halfway around the world _twice_ , and you, buddy, could probably use a shower.”

Castiel glares at Dean, even as he silently concedes the point. “Are you saying I smell?”

“I’m saying...” Dean leans in again, trailing kisses along Castiel’s cheek and temple, tugging at his earlobe with his teeth. Castiel sighs happily. “Can I join you?”

Castiel’s brain stalls, unable to formulate any sort of coherent response. Dean’s eyes search his face, and he looks suddenly nervous. “I mean, if that’s okay. If you think we’re moving too fast or something, we don’t have to—”

“Yes,” Castiel says, nodding frantically. “Yes, we do have to. I think we really, really do.”

He knows his exhaustion is going to catch up with him sooner rather than later, his clothes are wrinkled and he probably does smell, but for now? The prospect of Dean’s skin under his hands, naked and firm and wet from the warm spray of a shower sounds like the best possible idea.

Castiel moves in for another kiss, pushing Dean backwards in the vague direction of the bathroom, the two of them bumping into walls and door frames as they go. Somewhere along the way, in a confusion of hands tugging at clothing and sliding over skin, Dean loses his t-shirt and Castiel’s dress shirt is unbuttoned.

When they finally make it to the bathroom, Castiel is thoroughly distracted by the smooth expanse of Dean’s chest, perfect in every way and finally his to touch. He kisses along Dean’s collarbone, mouthes at the hollow of his throat.

Dean’s head drops back against the wall tile, eyelashes fluttering. “Cas,” he croaks. “Shower.”

Castiel hums his agreement, thumbing at one of Dean’s nipples as he gropes blindly for the handle. He somehow succeeds in turning on the water, sparing a quick, grateful thought to Betty’s uncle for making sure the water pressure in the building is more than adequate.

Before he can adjust the temperature of the water to a comfortable level, Dean takes hold of his hips and reverses their positions, crowding Castiel up against the tile wall, hands roaming up and down his bare chest. Castiel pushes off the wall just far enough to shrug his shirt the rest of the way off. 

“Cas,” Dean pants as he nibbles at Castiel’s earlobe, noses at the side of his neck, drags the tip of his tongue along the seam of Castiel’s lips. Castiel shivers, hands trailing down Dean’s back until they reach the firm swell of his ass, grabbing on tight with both hands and pulling him closer, hating Dean’s pants for still being on him. _Why_ are they still on him?

“Pants off,” Castiel breathes into their next kiss. “Now.”

Dean smiles and moves back to undo his belt and button, pulling down his jeans and boxers in a single motion.

Castiel is frozen in place, taking in the tanned skin of Dean’s chest, the freckles scattered across his shoulders, the slight softness below his belly button, the bow of his legs. And, most beautiful of all, the nest of neatly trimmed curls framing a lovely, blood-flushed cock.

“I need to be touching you,” Castiel says, his always-deep voice lowered further by the irresistible, urgent heat boiling under his skin. “Right now.”

Dean surges forward, reaching behind Castiel to adjust the temperature of the water, and Castiel is almost past caring, would pull Dean into the stall with him even if the spray were scalding hot, just for a chance to get closer.

He’s just about to do so when Dean grabs hold of his wrists. “Cas, buddy. You’re still wearing pants.”

“Oh. Right.” Castiel should feel embarrassed, but he’s much too focused on the flush of Dean’s face, the way his eyes are dark and wanting, and it’s more of a struggle than it should be to get rid of the last barrier of clothing between them.

Finally, he manages it, and Dean surges forward again, pushing against Castiel’s painfully hard cock, the wonderful, maddening friction pulling moans from them both.

“Dean,” Castiel pleads. “Shower.”

Dean nods, stealing another kiss as he pushes Castiel into the shower stall.

“God, you’re beautiful,” Castiel mumbles against Dean’s lips as the warm spray beats against his back, sluicing away the tension and grime of his long trip home. “I didn’t... I didn’t really get to look the last time.”

Dean pulls back a little, face flushed and gorgeous in the steam from the shower, but also a touch regretful. “I’m so sorry about that, Cas. I... I should’ve stayed with you, and we should’ve talked. I just... I was so scared that you’d change your mind about leaving. I mean, I wanted you to, but... that was your _dream_. I wasn’t gonna be the reason you missed out on it.” He ducks his head, eyes darting up shyly underneath his wet lashes. “You know?”

Castiel steps out of the spray and closer to Dean, unable to bear the idea of _not touching_ for one second longer. He takes hold of Dean’s hand, tangling their fingers together. His arousal is still a pleasant buzz in the background, but its urgency has receded, replaced by the need to offer reassurance. “Dean, I... I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have left the way I did, without a word. I thought you might prefer it that way, and it just seemed easier at the time, but it was selfish. We both made mistakes.”

Dean nods, giving Castiel’s hand a small squeeze. “Start over?” he asks, looking up to meet Castiel’s eyes fully.

Castiel nods, relieved. “Start over.” He takes another step closer, until they’re pressed together, skin to skin. Dean’s erection has flagged a little while they were talking, and so has Castiel’s own, but the air is warm and steamy around them and Dean is beautiful. Somehow, Castiel doesn’t think it will take much to get the mood back.

“I believe there was something we were about to do...?” he says, trailing his free hand up Dean’s side.

Dean needs no further encouragement. He pushes Castiel back under the spray, capturing his lips until Castiel is desperate for more, closer, _faster_ , anything at all Dean is willing to give him. Dean rolls his hips into Castiel’s, both their cocks fully hard again and dragging against each other, the friction of it so good, but not nearly _enough_. 

The warm water beating down on them is bliss, but it’s nothing compared to feeling the shift of Dean’s muscles underneath this skin, hearing the small moans and panting breaths escaping from Dean’s mouth as he keeps rolling his hips, crowding Castiel up against the tile.

Castiel’s composure, already hanging by a thread, snaps altogether when Dean sinks to his knees, running a tongue up Castiel’s shaft, lapping up the drops of precome gathering at the tip.

“Dean,” Castiel breathes, threading a hand through Dean’s hair. Dean smiles up at him, eyes dark and wicked. He dives in again, just a gentle, teasing suck at the tip, then runs his tongue up and down Castiel’s sensitive underside, Castiel’s knees almost buckling with how _good_ , how right this feels.

“You like that, sweetheart?” Dean murmurs, the soft curve of his smile the worst kind of tease against the aching hardness between Castiel’s legs. Dean trails his fingers down to Castiel’s balls, cupping and rolling them in the palm of his hand. A long, ragged moan scrapes up Castiel’s throat.

“So good, Dean. Feels so good,” he breathes. He cries out when the warm heat of Dean’s mouth engulfs him, mingling with the hot, wet steam of the shower in the most delicious way. Dean’s hand is curled tight around Castiel’s base as his mouth bobs up and down, his other hand exploring further back until a tentative, gentle finger brushes over Castiel’s hole.

“God, Dean, please.” Castiel doesn’t even know what he’s asking for, only that he wants it, and he wants Dean to be the one to give it to him. Dean hums around Castiel’s dick, the sensation sending shockwaves of pleasure all the way to Castiel’s fingertips.

Dean pulls off, with one last swirl of his tongue across the tip, and Castiel almost whimpers at the loss. “Can’t wait to fuck you, Cas,” Dean breathes, blinking up at Castiel as he sucks wet, open-mouthed kisses all along Castiel’s length. “Can’t wait for you to fuck me. Want everything with you, Cas. _Everything_.”

“Yes,” Castiel agrees, nodding frantically, his mind hazy with pleasure but still so very much in agreement. “Yes, me too. I want everything. Want to give everything to you.”

Dean’s mouth engulfs Castiel again, taking him deeper this time, until Castiel feels the head of his cock bump against the back of Dean’s throat. He sucks in a deep breath, trying his hardest to hang on to that last fragile thread of self-control, to keep from thrusting further into Dean’s mouth, down the tight clutch of his throat.

Dean’s hand curls around Castiel’s hip, squeezing gently, and Castiel looks down to meet his eyes. Dean gives a small nod, then takes hold of Castiel’s ass with both hands, pulling him in.

Castiel lets out a helpless moan and relinquishes control, losing himself to the sensation of _Dean_ , opening and relaxing for him, letting him roll his hips and fuck his mouth until he comes with a hoarse cry.

Castiel leans back against the tile wall, eyes closed, warm water running down his jellied limbs. He’s vaguely aware of Dean getting to his feet, warm arms circling around his waist as soft, wet lips press against his. 

“Was it good for you, sweetheart?” Dean asks, voice low and rough, and Castiel opens his eyes to see Dean grinning at him, looking extremely pleased.

Castiel is helpless to do anything other than return that grin. “You know very well that it was. You’re fishing for compliments.”

Dean shrugs, eyes wide and lips pursed like the very picture of innocence. “Maybe.” He moves a little closer, his still-hard cock nudging against Castiel’s thigh. 

“Want me to take care of that for you?” Castiel whispers, deliberately rubbing his thigh against the tip of Dean’s cock until Dean’s grin melts into an expression of slack-jawed pleasure.

“I’d like that,” Dean whispers back, lips moving against the skin of Castiel’s neck, and Castiel works a hand between them. His fingers curl around Dean’s cock, his thumb gathering precome off the tip to slick the way as he works up and down Dean’s shaft with firm strokes.

“God, yeah,” Dean pants. “Just like that, sweetheart.”

Dean’s hand braces against the tile behind Castiel’s back, hips rocking into Castiel’s fist.

“I can’t wait to have you in my bed,” Castiel murmurs, right against the sensitive shell of Dean’s ear, relishing the desperate little moan he gets in response. “I’m going to lay you out on my mattress and discover every inch of you. Find out exactly what beautiful sounds you make when I take you in my mouth, when I push the tip of my tongue inside you, when I make you come on my cock.”

Dean’s body locks up, muscles going taut, and he spills all over Castiel’s hand with a hoarse cry.

“Fuck, Cas,” Dean pants. “Never figured you for a dirty talker.”

“I’m not usually,” Castiel admits. “But I’m extremely sleep-deprived, and I think I lost any capacity for shame approximately twenty hours of flight time ago.”

Dean laughs, and Castiel kisses that laugh, because he can. They give each other a cursory wash and head straight to the bedroom after, curling around each other under the sheets without bothering to get dressed.

Before Castiel lets sleep pull him under, he spares a brief pang of regret for the idea that they’re losing an entire morning’s worth of sightseeing time. But, he decides, as Dean’s arm tightens around him and the soft thud of Dean’s heartbeat sounds under his ear, Beijing will still be there in a few hours.

*** 

_Two Years Later_

“It’s so strange to think I’m never coming back here.” 

Cas looks a little lost as he takes in the sad, bare landscape of his office. There’s really only a desk and a chair left, alongside an empty bookcase and filing cabinet. All his things are already packed up in boxes, ready to be picked up by movers and shipped back to Kansas.

“Yeah, I bet.” Dean turns away from the window, which looks out on Beijing’s Central Business District, or zhōngyāng shāngwù qū. (Yeah, Dean’s picked up a bit of Chinese over the past couple of years. He always figured Sam was the one who got all the language skills in the family, but it turns out Dean’s not half bad himself when he puts his mind to it.) 

Cas’ window actually has a great view of the skyscraper Dean noticed on his first trip here. It’s officially known as the China Central Television Headquarters, but Freddo told him that most people just call it _dà kùchǎ_ , or big boxer shorts. (Which, honestly, is even better than the pair of pants Dean was picturing.) And yeah, he giggles every time he sees the place now. But Freddo does too, so at least Dean’s not the only immature one.

Since his first trip to China, Dean has taken two more, one of them as long as a month. About a year ago, Bobby offered him a position as partner at the garage, which Dean figured would mean he’d have even less time off, but has actually translated into a more relaxed schedule. With his position at the garage secure (not to mention the raise he got with the promotion), he’s felt a bit more comfortable stepping away sometimes.

Those times he came to visit, Cas didn’t always have a lot of time to hang out if he was busy with a big project, but Dean learned to enjoy exploring the city by himself, or even taking a train out into the countryside. He never thought of himself as the hiking type, but he’s logged quite a few hours walking the section of the Great Wall at Badaling. (Sam can never find out, or he’ll try to get Dean to go running next.)

But even when Cas was busy, Dean didn’t always have to spend time alone. Almost two years ago, Betty found a decent job working at a coffee shop near the arts district, and Dean will sometimes kill an hour or two there, chatting with her in between customers. It used to be that they just spoke English, but she’s taught him more and more sprinkles of conversational Chinese, and now they go back and forth with a seamlessness that seemed to surprise even Cas, Mr. Annoyingly Amazing Language Skills himself, the first time he heard it.

Dean hangs out with Freddo sometimes too, at various restaurants and parks around the city, though Dean’s always careful to make sure he has some way of getting to their destination that doesn’t involve Freddo driving. A lot of the time, they just go to Betty’s coffee shop, which is conveniently right by a subway stop. Come to think of it, Freddo’s been asking to meet there more and more often on Dean’s most recent visit, and he’s starting to have some thoughts as to why.

“Hey, Cas?”

Cas hums to show that he’s listening and wanders over to stand next to Dean by the window.

“You ever notice that Freddo and Betty are getting kinda cozy?”

Cas turns to him, a little wrinkle of confusion creasing his forehead. “What do you mean?”

“Just, I don’t know, they spend a lot more time together than they used to. Swear I saw her blush the other day when he put his arm around her.”

“I hope you’re right,” Cas says, smiling softly as he looks down at the ant-sized cars zooming along the highway ten stories below. “I think they’d make a good couple.”

“Yeah, if they can ever stop fighting,” Dean says, bumping his shoulder against Cas’.

“Maybe they’ll manage it the same way we do. With makeup sex.” Cas moves to stand behind Dean and wrap his arms around his waist, chin tucked on top of Dean’s shoulder. It’s bound to be a bit of an awkward stretch for Cas, because Dean’s just that little bit taller than him, but Cas doesn’t seem to mind. 

Dean leans back into him. “Ugh. Don’t make me think about that. They’re my _friends_ , man. And they’re, like, babies.”

“Hardly,” Cas says, sounding amused. “They’re mature adults in their mid-twenties.”

Dean snorts, and Cas concedes, “Fine. _Reasonably_ mature.”

Cas isn’t wrong about the makeup sex, though. Of course, they did have their rough patches over the course of their relationship. The first one came when, after an amazing five days together in Beijing, Dean had to take his flight back to Kansas, and it wasn’t really clear when he was going to be able to see Cas again. Cas was incredibly stressed out for a while, trying to negotiate with his home office so he could split his time between Beijing and Kansas City, and he almost handed in his notice a few times. But in the end, it seemed like the firm valued his skills enough that they were willing to accommodate him. They agreed to let Cas spend four months out of the year in Beijing, and the rest of the year back in Kansas City, with Dean.

Living together as a couple was tricky sometimes too. Overall, it wasn’t that different from living together as friends, but it was still a new dynamic for them, and they didn’t always see eye to eye on things. (The fight about how they were going to split the rent going forward is definitely going down in history.)

But they always figured a way out of any obstacle or disagreement, and that way usually involved some pretty amazing (sometimes a little angry) sex. It didn’t take them long to realize that they were pretty damn compatible in the bedroom, as they already knew they were with just about anything else.

But now Cas’ three-year stint in Beijing is officially at an end, and his boss in Kansas City gave him the choice of staying in China or coming back to the U.S. full-time. There was another fight about that, because Dean figured Cas was going to feel obligated to come back because of Dean, and Cas insisted he was allowed to make his own decisions and have Dean be a factor in them. (That night ended with Dean on the bed on all fours, one hand braced against the wall, while Cas fucked every last coherent thought out of his head.)

“You gonna miss it here?” Dean asks, tangling his fingers with Cas’ where they’re resting on his stomach.

“Very much,” Cas says quietly, his breath tickling Dean’s earlobe. “But I don’t want to think about that now. I want to think about our next adventure.”

“Hmm.” Dean watches as the light of late afternoon slowly fades outside, lending the air a lovely, soft color that Beijing sunsets don’t often have. There’s been hardly any smog all week, and it feels almost like the city is trying to show its best face to say goodbye to them.

“We still planning to go south first?” Dean asks, pulling Cas’ arms more tightly around himself.

“I’d like to,” Cas says thoughtfully. “We could travel to Shanghai and Xiamen. Maybe as far as Hong Kong.”

“And then?” Dean asks. “Head over to Japan?”

“Maybe. Or to Vietnam. What do you think?”

“I think I kinda like not knowing. And I’m happy to go wherever.”

After all, Cas has six weeks until he’s expected back at his desk in Kansas City, and Bobby wouldn’t hear of Dean taking anything less than that same amount of time off work. So here they are, about to leave for the trip of their lives.

“You surprise me, Dean Winchester,” Cas says, planting a gentle kiss on the back of his neck. “I always thought you liked staying close to home.”

“Can I be really, unforgivably sappy for just a sec?” Dean asks, turning around in Cas’ arms until they’re facing each other.

“Always.”

Dean ducks down to kiss his boyfriend’s contented smile. “I’m already home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! Thank you so much for going on this journey with me! 
> 
> Please do leave me a comment or some kudos if you enjoyed this! (And if you REALLY enjoyed it, consider [giving this fic a reblog on tumblr](https://friendofcarlotta.tumblr.com/post/643581492789968896/ive-flown-around-the-world-now-complete-read-it)!)

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this story and would like to read more of my writing, you can subscribe to me [here](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendofCarlotta/pseuds/FriendofCarlotta)! I have lots of fun stuff coming up, including a Pinefest fic with a metric ton of pining, and another collab with the lovely [dothraki_shieldmaiden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dothraki_shieldmaiden/pseuds/dothraki_shieldmaiden).
> 
> Come find me on [tumblr](https://friendofcarlotta.tumblr.com)!


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